Taxi to the Dark Side

Wednesday, November 12
12 Noon & 7:00 PM. (Potluck at 6:30)
Monthly Every Second Wednesday Video Presentation at the Fresno Center for Nonviolence, 1584 N. Van Ness, Fresno, CA 93728, across from Fresno City College * SE Corner Van Ness & McKinley * Entrance on Van Ness. This month’s film will be "Taxi to the Dark Side." This is a horrifying story of an Afghani cabbie who died in U. S. Military custody. "Taxi" has received numerous awards including an Oscar and a Peabody. It has raised disturbing questions about interrogation techniques and U. S. wartime policies. A. O. Scott of the New York Times, wrote: "A year from now, the presidency of George W. Bush will end, but the consequences of Mr. Bush's policies and the arguments about them are likely to be with us for a long time. As next Jan. 20 draws near, there is an evident temptation, among many journalists as well as politicians seeking to replace Mr. Bush, to close the book and move ahead, an impulse that makes the existence of documentaries like Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side" all the more vital. If recent American history is ever going to be discussed with the necessary clarity and ethical rigor, this film will be essential. . . . The germ of this documentary's story is the case of Dilawar, a taxi driver who was detained in Afghanistan in 2002 and who died in American custody at the prison in Bagram a few months later. Though Dilawar was never charged with any crime – and was never shown to have any connection with Al Qaeda or the Taliban – he was subjected to horrifically harsh treatment: deprived of sleep; suspended from a grated ceiling by his wrists; kicked and kneed in the legs until he could no longer stand. The film includes remarkably frank interviews with American servicemen, some of whom faced courts-martial in connection with Dilawar's death; with a fellow prisoner at Bagram; and with Carlotta Gall and Tim Golden, who reported on Dilawar's story for the New York Times. ‘Taxi to the Dark Side,' however, does not simply recount a single awful anecdote from the early days of the war on terror; rather, it traces the spread of a central, controversial tactic in that war." FREE. For info: 237-3223.